With the mid-year exams so close, sleep is probably the last on your list of priorities at the moment. Let’s talk about that. Brain Science teaches us that physical changes occur in the brain when we learn. It is similar to when you work out in the gym – your muscles change, your body’s physical … 2 JUNE 2025 – SLEEP IN ORDER TO LEARN

Good morning How’s it going with your studies? Have you been keeping to your schedule, using the pomodoro technique and making sure that you are learning actively? Good for you! Here’s another reminder of one the great tools we introduced when we started this newsletter last year, to help you use your study time as effectively as possible. It’s called spaced … 26 May 2025 – Effective Study: Spaced Repetition

If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here Last week we talked about that big dark shadow, fear of failure. The first step to overcoming it, we said, is to face it. Name it to tame it. What exactly are you afraid of? Define it. Then, secondly, focus on what you can control, and thirdly, take action. This week … 19 May 2025 – Beating Procrastination

If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here This week we’re talking deep stuff that few of us will acknowledge, even to ourselves, but most of us have experienced: fear of failure. That paralysing conviction that you’ll never be able to do this, whatever “this” is. You’ll never understand calculus, or the Middle English poem you have … 12 May 2025 – Fear of Failure

If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here. We hear about misinformation and fake news every day. People lose money to scammers. It seems like you cannot trust anything or anybody. How can you know what to believe? How do you evaluate information? It may sound weird, but the first step is to trust yourself. Trust your common sense. That … 5 May 2025 – Handling Information 4: Evaluating Information – Staying Safe Online

If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here. If you have been using the section on study methods in GRAD – your guide to university success, you will have come across the name of Dr Barbara Oakley. She’s the one who failed Mathematics in high school and yet became a professor of Engineering after she upgraded … 28 April 2025 – Working with AI to Study More Effectively

If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here. We’re well into the academic year. Even those of you who had never met a computer before coming to university, know that computers and the digital world are an essential, very rich part of this new journey. Use it. Always try and learn more. As you get used to Excel … 21 April 2025 – Handling Information 2: Digital Literacy Using AI

If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll talk about information in all shapes and sizes. We’ll talk about digital literacy. We’ll talk about AI and how to use it to advance your studies. We’ll talk about staying safe online. But first, back to basics. You have to understand what comes your … 14 April 2025 – Handling Information 1: The Basics

If you prefer to listen to this newsletter, click here. The theme of this week’s Though is really theoretical at the moment, but if you take it to heart now, you will be forever grateful in forty years’ time. Let’s start with a story. Wendy Selebi is a financial coach, an author and a podcaster. Do … 7 April 2025 – Managing Money 4: Build a Happy Retirement from Day 1

If you prefer to listen to this newsletter, click here. I know, I know, you see the heading above and you say to yourself, “I’m barely making ends meet and they want me to SAVE? Really?” Please keep reading. Let’s see if we can shift your view just a little bit. There are three levels of saving, or … 31 March 2025 – Manage Money 3: Saving as the key to Self-empowerment